Monday, March 26, 2018

Two issues in particular made me wonder about international coordination, especially in the face of weakening the State Department.

First, the best way to get sanctions to work (which in this case is to free all political prisoners and have free and fair elections) is to make them multilateral. They are least effective if only the United States is imposing them. Yet only six individuals are sanctioned by the United States, Canada, and the European Union. So are there U.S. officials working on this with our allies?

Second, some of the highest Maduro officials are not sanctioned, suggesting that the U.S. is hoping to avoid bonding them permanently to Maduro himself. So are there U.S. officials working on this, especially as Tom Shannon retires?

As you might guess if you are a regular reader, I am not optimistic. But I know how many really smart people there are in the State Department, and maybe some of them are having an impact on the administration.